16 :: .:; .-; .:' -;.:---: ------ --- - '>---- ----- I . go in with them and look at the ex- hibits "What's so interesting about the World' s Fair?" the fifth boy asked, but the others ran into the building, and he followed them, getting stuck for a minute, in the revolving door. Habitat A FRIEND of OlJ.fS has told us about a cocktail-party encounter he had the other afternoon with a nat- uralist, who, during a brief chat, dis- closed that he had just spent three months travelling up and down South America in search of spotted skunks, his specialty, and that he had managed to see and study several hundred of them Our friend, duly impressed and thinking of the arduous field work that such re- search must entail, asked the naturalist how he knew where to hunt for the ani- mals "0 h, I should have explained," he replied. "I found them in museums." New Producer T HE hit of the Off Broadway sea- son is, of course, the revival, at Theatre Four, on West FIfty-fifth Street, of "The Boys from Syracuse," the 1938 Rodgers and Hart musical. In . _ .. u , ., - .. . - -,. . ., .. .... - - . ... ., . . .., . ... .. - . , 5]4í<f A\? l11 J-Æ , \ --- -- , )- ""- . ' '" "Holy mackerel!" . . fact, since it opened, on April 15th, to wildly favorable reVIews, the show has been sold out for every performance ex- cept one, and, with an advance sale approaching thirty-five thousand dol- lars, it is wer on its way to becoming the greatest financial success in the history of Off Broadway. While a certain amount of the credIt for all this natural- ly belongs to Richard Rodgers and the late Lorenz Hart, who provided the score with such wonderful songs as "Falling,.in Love with Love," "Sing for Your Supper," "This Can't Be Love," and "You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea," and to George Abbott, who adapted the book from Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" and directed the musical' original production, every- one agrees that the major share of the credit should go to a dogged young man named Richard York, who, although he had never before produced anything anywhere, produced the revival. Until last December, indeed, he was a waiter in a fashionahle East Side restaurant called Pablo's. Upon learning of his swift leap up life's ladder, we met Mr. York, a dap- per, sharp-featured man of thirty-three with an engaging smile and prematurely graying hair, for a drink at Sardi's, AVCiUST 10, 19 b.3 where he beamingly told us that he had just bought a Mercedes, and that, what wIth his share of the proceeds from the New York productIon and Capi- to1's recording of the show, he anticipates making ahout a hun- dred thousand dollars out of "The Boys from S " " I ' 11 yracuse. t s a too much to believe," he went on, taking a fast sip of a lVlartini. "I knew we had a mar- vellous show, but I never dreamed that It would be a smash. We got a rave from every critic; we've won tht Vernon RIce A ward and an Off Broadway Obie; two of our play- ers, Stuart Damon and Julienne Marie, have won Theatre World Awards; and we're practically sold out through the rest of the summer . It's staggering but-well, nice." Mr. York told us that he had decided to hecome a producer four years ago, after a singularly unsuccessful career as a singer and dancer. A native of \1inne- apolis, he started studying voice and bal- let when he was in his teens, and after a hitch in the Air Force he settled in San Francisco and tried to break into the theatre. "I got a job as a salesman for Liggett & Myers, and in the evenings and on weekends I worked as an unpaid apprentice for local semi-professional dramatic and musical theatre groups," he said. "I did everything I swept up, worked the lights, helped to huild scen- ery, sold tickets, stage-managed, and, over a penod of four years, sang and danced in a score of productions, in- cluding 'The Golden Apple,' 'Street Scene,' and 'Kiss Me, Kate.' In the sprIng of 1958, though, I decided that if I was ever going to make it in show busintss, the place to he was New York, so I quit my job and started across coun- try-hitchhiking. A week later, I was flat broke in St. Louis, and I took a job for the summer as a bartender on an old Mississippi showboat moored thert. It was a great job, and by September I had enough money saved to fly the rest of the way to New York." Once settled here, Mr. York began taking further VOIce and dance lessons, ... x'